ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

After too long watching injustice and corruption, the people of Bucharest are now turning the wheels of justice. Standing against the illegal capture and killing of homeless animals, the people of Romania are taking to the streets in ever increasing numbers to defend those who cannot defend themselves.

They are bringing a message to Romania that injustice will always fail... and humanity will always take its place.

Even describing dogs as a mass (kg) offends the notion they are independent sentient beings and is a clear violation of the spirit of Article 13 TFEU. Profoundly insulting to the conscience of any decent human.

Considering that the average weight for a 'normal dog' is of about 25 kg, and if would then take 18 kg as an average weight for a starved Romanian stray dog, it results that ASPA intends to kill between between 21,500 and 31,500 dogs, or an average of 28,000 dogs over 21 months.

The dogs that will be killed, or will have perished, in the 3 Bucharest 'shelters' will be collected by Stericycle and incinerated along with medical waste and sharps, pharmaceuticals, and hazardous waste that Stericycle collects from hospitals, veterinarians and all kind of physicians.

STERICYCLE refrigerator truck seen at Bragadiru shelter on 18th of July, 2014

What happens to stray dogs after their miserable life has ended

in a Romanian so-called "shelter"?

The short answer is: they go to a rendering plant, or directly to an incineration plant.

A rendering plant renders dead animals carted in by farmers, veterinarians, animal shelters, and roadkill crews. And it also processes all kind of animal by-products from slaughterhouses.

It's not a topic that most people think about, but consider this: One dairy cow weighs 1,500 pounds, and chicken farms house millions of birds... and then there are the pigs and the horses. And all the homeless animals that no-one wants, that are being killed in shelters, that have been poisoned, beaten to death, run over by accident or on purpose....

When farm animals die of a disease and thus are not fit for human consumption, or like in the case of the homeless animals of Romania, when they die of starvation or dehydration, or when they have been killed after a '14-days-pre-slaughter-period' spent in one of Romania's death camps... they have to go somewhere. And they go to PROTAN, or - in the future - to STERICYCLE if they die in Bucharest.

Rendering plants take all kinds of dead animals, slaughterhouse and meat-packing castoffs, and restaurant oils and grease. They reduce these materials into oils, fats and proteins used in cosmetics, paints, pet food and livestock feed.

According to their own description, PROTAN produces MBM (meat and bone meal), fat, feather meal and blood meal, so let's first explain what their different "products" really are:

What is 'meat and bone meal' (MBM)?

Meat and bone meal is a product that is made from animal processing offal. Offal are those parts of the animal that are not fit for human consumption; it contains among others fat, meat, organs, bones, blood and feathers. Almost 30% of the live weight of an animal ends up as offal.

From WIKIPEDIA:

Meat and bone meal (MBM) is a product of the rendering industry. It is typically about 48–52% protein, 33–35% ash, 8–12% fat, and 4–7% moisture. It is primarily used in the formulation of animal feed to improve the amino acid profile of the feed. Feeding of MBM to cattle is thought to have been responsible for the spread of BSE (mad cow disease). In most parts of the world, MBM is no longer allowed in feed for ruminant animals. However, MBM is still used to feed monogastric animals. It is widely used in the United States as a low-cost meat in dog food and cat food.

Meat and bone meal is thought to have been responsible for the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, better known as mad cow disease. Cows (and other livestock) were commonly fed a ground-up mash of other cows' remains, because it was rich in protein and heightened the animals' amino acid intake. This practice has since been abandoned in most of the developed world and while in most parts of the world, MBM is no longer allowed in feed for ruminant animals it is still used to feed monogastric animals.

Also the Food and Drug Administration banned it in 1997 but the American meat industry still produces about 9 billion pounds of protein meal every year, most of which is meat and bone meal. Bone meal by itself is turned into garden fertilizer, but without widespread use for meat and bone meal, it's dumped into special landfills, according to ACS. It is treated with chemicals to prevent the spread of prions associated with BSE. Meat and bone meal is still a major ingredient in many pet foods produced in America.

In Europe, some MBM is used as ingredients in petfood but the vast majority is now used as a fossil-fuel replacement for renewable energy generation, as a fuel in cement kilns, landfilling or incineration.

Meat and bone meal has around two thirds the energy value of fossil fuels such as coal; the UK in particular widely uses meat and bone meal for the generation of renewable electricity. This was particularly prominent after many cattle were slaughtered during the BSE crisis.

Meat and bone meal is increasingly used in cement kilns as an environmentally sustainable replacement for coal.

Feather meal is a byproduct of processing poultry; it is made from poultry feathers by partially hydrolyzing them under elevated heat and pressure, and then grinding and drying. Although total nitrogen levels are fairly high (up to 12%), the bioavailability of this nitrogen may be low. Feather meal is used in formulated animal feed and in organic fertilizer.Worldwide, more than 25 billion chickens are used for human consumption. Feather meal is made through a process called rendering. Steam pressure cookers with temperatures over 140°C are used to "cook" and sterilize the feathers. This partially hydrolyzes the proteins, which denatures them. It is then dried, cooled and ground into a powder for use as a nitrogen source for animal feed (mostly ruminants) or as an organic soil amendment.

Containing up to 12% nitrogen, it is a source of slow-release, organic, high-nitrogen fertilizer for organic gardens. It is not water soluble and does not make a good liquid fertilizer. It can be used to:

Increase green leaf growth

Activate compost decomposition

Improve soil structure

When adding it to a garden as a nitrogen source, it must be blended into the soil to start the decomposition to make the nitrogenous compounds available to the plants. As an organic garden fertilizer, it is not synthetic or petroleum-based.

Blood meal is a dry, inert powder made from blood used as a high-nitrogen fertilizer and a high protein animal feed. N = 13.25%, P = 1.0%, K = 0.6%. It is one of the highest non-synthetic sources of nitrogen. It usually comes from cattle as a slaughterhouse by-product. It can be spread on gardens to deter animals such as rabbits, or as a composting activator. It may also be used as an animal food supplement for cattle, fish and poultry and is in fact widely used due to the high lysine content. In some countries, it is mixed with molasses before use as animal feed. At least one major marketer is offering blood meal derived from hogs, as an alternative to bovine-derived product.

Blood meal, bone meal, and other animal by-products are permitted in certified organic production as soil amendments, though they cannot be fed to organic livestock. Blood meal is different from bone meal in that blood meal contains a much higher amount of nitrogen, while bone meal contains phosphorus. Alternatives to Blood Meal include feather meal and alfalfa meal.

Nitrogen is more typically missing from soils than the other elements provided by most fertilizers (phosphorus and potassium). Plants grown in soil lacking proper amounts of nitrogen will yellow from the leaves down due to nitrogen deficiency. Applying blood meal will help plants become green again.

"Let them all be killed, none should be spared, let them make soap out of them"

declared little Ionut's grandmother to the media.

In Romania, in the past also companion animals, stray animals included, used to be rendered into all kind of things, like soap, lubricants, candles and many other things, but Romania's current animal protection law 9/2008 clearly states that companion animals (dogs and cats) must be cremated.

Rendering animal waste from slaughterhouses, restaurants, veterinarians, shelters, farmers, etc... is common practice all over the world and you will find rendered animals in:

Meat meal and bone meal: Used in livestock feed, pet food, cement, landfilling or to be used as a fossil-fuel replacement

But since the Romanian Animal Protection Law specifies that stray animals (companion animals in general) must be cremated, this is precisely what PROTAN does - at least officially. That said: dogs become ash.

And knowing that at a "rendering plant" nothing is being wasted - that ALL is being rendered into something - it seems logical that also the dogs' ash is not being wasted, is not being discarded like garbage, or spread over the fields, or thrown in the sea... And most certainly not given that PROTAN produces MBM (meat and bone meal) which consists typically of 33-35 % of ash.

According to the website of ALIBABA, PROTAN has a supply ability of 3,000 tons of MBM (meat and bone meal) per month, the minimum order quantity being 20 tons which are being shipped from Constanta to where ever the customer wants them to be.

And to reach a monthly supply ability of 3,000 tons, PROTAN needs between 1,000-1,050 tons of ash (33-35 %) to be added to the proteins (48-52 %), the fat (8-12 %) and the moisture (4-7 %), which will then be exported to countries all over the world for whatever purpose it might have there, and in Europe it will beused as ingredients in pet food but the vast majority will now be used as a fossil-fuel replacement for renewable energy generation or as a fuel in cement kilns, landfilling or incineration.

No-one ever wanted them.

Except PROTAN. And now also STERICYCLE...

Most owned dogs in Romania are not sterilized but allowed to roam freely and to mate as they wish. Their off-spring are then simply being killed or dumped on the streets or in the woods. Approximately 5 million puppies are born each year in Romania in rural areas. Nobody knows how many puppies are born in the entire country...

Few are those who will find a human companion who will feed them, or maybe even given them a warm home. They are born anonymous and they will die anonymous. They are nobody's dog and they will not live old. A stray dog's average life expectancy is said to be about 5 years, but many adult dogs do not live older than 2 years as life on the streets is hard, and even harder in Romania's so-called 'shelters' run by poorly educated and cruel people who don't bother to care for them. In many public shelters, dogs are not even being fed nor watered and the sooner they will die, the earlier they will make room for new dogs. It's all the volunteers, all those good Romanian people, who spend all their free time giving all their commitment and who go to the PS (public shelter) to feed the dogs at their own expenses a few times a week, making their lives a little less miserable and keeping them alive in the hope that they can find a loving home for them outside of Romania. But only very few of them are lucky ones...

On the streets, the dogs will fight over the limited amounts of food and that which can be scavenged, and injuries sustained this way are rarely treated. They are hit by cars, be it on purpose or by accidents, and few people care to help them... Tumors, skin infections, open sores, and infected wounds are common for stray dogs. It is estimated that over three quarters of puppies die in agony from diseases including parvovirus, distemper and even rabies.

It is difficult to estimate the number of stray animals living in Romania, because the problem is not only homeless dogs but also loose dogs who contribute to the stray animal population. Romania's animal protection associations estimate the number of homeless dogs at 1-1,5 million while their government says that there are 3 million.

Whatever their numbers might be, most of them share a common plight: they are unwanted; their lives are miserable, painful and short; their death won't come swiftly and it won't come gently and unless their lifeless bodies will be eaten up by other starving dogs or left to rot in the woods or on a deserted road side, they will all have the same destiny: they will go to PROTAN or STERICYLE.